Paul Desmond asked me to go hear Joe Morello. He was playing at the Hickory House with Marian McPartland. We were at the Blue Note. So we went over there in our intermission. This marvelous drummer. He was playing brushes. Paul Desmond just loved somebody that played brushes and didn't interrupt with some hard licks with sticks and clashing cymbals. So he said, as long as Joe Dodge has to go home to San Francisco, maybe this is the guy. So I talked to Joe. Joe was going to be on a vacation, because Marian McPartland was going home to London. So he would be out of work until she returned, which was quite a while. So he said, "I'm interested in your group, but your drummer's out to lunch. I want to be featured. " I said, "That's interesting, Joe. What do you mean `featured'? " He said, "Doing solos and experimenting and really doing some things I'd like to do. " I said that would be fine with me. Our next and first job was Chicago at the Blue Note. In the first set, at the end of the first set, I gave Joe a solo. He tore the place up and got a standing ovation. Joe always says, "a little standing ovation. " How can you get a little standing ovation? Then we went [ ] room, and Paul Desmond came in and said, "He goes or I go. " I said, "Paul Desmond, he's not going to go. I like very much the direction we can go. Things I've wanted to do clear back to the octet: different time signatures and things with the trio. " So he said he's leaving, and the bass player, Norman Bates was going to go with him. The next day I had a session at Columbia in Chicago. Those guys stood out on the other side of the control booth and wouldn't come in. So Joe and I played for about three hours. I don't know what ever happened to it. Then we went to the job that night, thinking, it's going to be a duet. Just when it was time to start, they came in, just on time, walking into the club. So I was able to save my group. I don't know what I would have done, but I would have gone without them, because I could see where Joe and I were going to go. You know, Joe could play a different tempo with each hand and each foot at the same time. I've never seen anybody that had that much control. Now, there might be guys in this world at that time that had that much dexterity, but I hadn't heard them. I knew this guy's a phenomenon. So I was so happy, and Paul Desmond was so unhappy. That's a terrible situation, when you've got two star players and they're not getting along. It took years for them to come - like Joe said, he loved Paul Desmond. At the end of Paul Desmond's life, it was one of Joe's students that Joe asked to   go live with Paul Desmond, when he was dying. They became so close to each other. Everybody in the group was close to each other. Eugene Wright was so wonderful all those years.